The Dresden Files: Hollow Victory
by Revlid
Summary: Masked monsters, invisible to the world at large, have started rampaging in Chicago. It's up to Harry Dresden, to investigate on behalf of interested parties, solve a murder in the afterlife, and, most importantly - make the rent on time. DEADFIC.


**Author's Note:** Not really sure where the rationale for this crossover came from, or how far I'll take it. I've only read up to Summer Knight so far, so any contradictions with canon (magic rules, etc) past that point should probably just be ignored.

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**The Dresden Files: Hollow Victory**

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This was weird.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Harry, you handsome devil, you routinely exorcise ghosts, arrest trolls, and lay the smackdown on evil hedge wizards. You own a talking skull, for god's sakes. What on earth can _you_, master detective and wizard-for-hire, find weird?

That's what you should be thinking, anyway. And the answer… is, well, _this_.

The thing right in front of me. It was as big as a truck, and stooped over like a gorilla, knuckles dragging the ground, with off-black skin that glistened like an oil spill. The only point of real colour on the thing was a perfectly white… mask? It _was_ a mask, with eyeholes and everything! And teeth, I noticed. Very big teeth.

Normally, I'd be worried. There was this huge – _thing_ – wandering around Chicago, causing occasional traffic accidents and making last night's puddles ripple with every step – but no-one was noticing. No running and screaming, no furtive searching for hidden cameras or exposed power cables, no Japanese tourists pointing and screaming… Nothing. I was almost disappointed.

Still, welcome as a giant monster that _wasn't_ causing havoc was, something with teeth like that intended to use them.

So I followed it. Hey, I had nothing better to do. I bet _your_ weekend was spent less productively than following a giant monster around.

This live-and-let-live attitude lasted until we got to the park. Up until then, it apparently hadn't noticed me, and it hadn't paid all that much attention to others, either. There was a moment where it bumped into a guy on the sidewalk, but it was moving slowly enough that he wasn't hurt, and he just acted like he'd tripped and fallen, so I left him alone and kept following.

The park was where things got iffy. Now, if you've been following my recollections of dashing-adventure and daring-do, coupled with a not-insignificant amount of running and screaming, you'll know about ghosts.

Ghosts are what happens when a particularly violent, tragic, ironic or magical death takes place – a psychic scar on the surrounding magical environment, if you will. They're not an actual soul, they're more like a bad photocopy of the person they once were, with certain traits (generally the violent or angry ones) exaggerated and others discarded all together (compassion, joy, not throwing things at me).

The mousy, trembling translucent young lady in front of me definitely wasn't alive. For one thing, she had a broken-off chain sticking out of her chest, and that just can't be healthy. For another, she was walking through stuff, which is generally a good clue.

So she wasn't alive, but she wasn't a ghost either – I could _feel_ her in front of me, like a living person fired up with magic… Only without the 'living' part. She was a soul outside of a body, which was something I'd only ever heard about in Bob's stories about possession party-tricks gone horribly wrong.

I was torn between trying to comfort her (chivalrous nature meets obvious reasons for caution) and working out what the hell she was my tall, dark and ugly companion started moving. He lunged at her, with frightening speed – you expect something that big to be lumbering, not to move like a tiger on acid.

She screamed and raised her arms to shield herself, and my natural chivalrousness kicked in. I whipped out my staff (stop that sniggering).

"Fuego!" Cue fiery blast. It hit the thing right in the side of the mask, leaving an ugly scorch mark and sending it staggering. Worryingly, it didn't fall down. Most things do.

Instead it turned around and glared at me. Not good.

Ignoring the girl, the mask-thing charged me, mouth open, with a roar like a giant drunk Texan. It was slower than last time – I'm not sure if it was hurt, or just being more cautious. Either way, if at first you don't succeed…

"Fuego!" This time the fireball hit the thing on the arm, and it screeched like a pair of stressed car tires. The flesh where it was hit practically bubbled away, and the arm itself was hanging by a thread – no bones. Whatever this thing was, I realised, it wasn't material. More like a weak, stupid demon, or a particularly nasty spirit.

Before I could throw out another fireball, the thing was on me – I didn't even see it move. One moment it was stumbling around with an arm off, the next moment I became weightless and the world started spinning. I stopped rolling with the punch a couple of meters away, and almost threw up – I broke a rib or two.

I couldn't even get to my feet before I felt the thing grab me off the floor, sending fresh red flashes of pain through my side. Its hand was big enough to comfortably hold my whole torso in one hand – that was worrying, but it was a bit late for second thoughts. Instead, I thanked every god I hadn't met or pissed off so far that I didn't drop my staff, and raised it in my free arm, pointing right at the thing's mask.

Good thing it didn't seem to understand pattern recognition. I shut my eyes.

"Fuego!" Point blank, the heat washed over me like a sandpaper wave, and I fell to the ground with the natural grace of a true wizard – my legs buckled straight away.

Blinking away the spots of light from the corners, I looked up at the thing, hoping against hope it wasn't still standing. It was, but it didn't look healthy. The glow in its eye-sockets was gone (generally a good sign) and its mask was blackened and cracked almost in half. As I watched, the crack widened, and the mask outright broke.

I had a brief glimpse of an oddly human-looking face, before the thing's body evaporated. Just… gone. Poof. Convenient, and god knows I wish half the stuff I end up whacking with my magic stick had the good grace to do the same, but also a bit troubling.

I turned to Little Miss Translucent, who had stopped sobbing and was staring at me in a kind of wonder. Why can't more actual, flesh-and-blood women look at me like that?

"I really hope-" I stopped to clear my throat. It took a while, and by the end I thought I might have lost a lung. "-really hope you don't eat people, whatever you are." I got unsteadily to my feet, wishing that I had a larger staff to lean on. "Not after I've gone to all that trouble."

I paused as a police car drew up by the gate, the cops inside not looking best pleased with my little pyrotechnic display. Perhaps I could convince them I was practicing for the 4th of July?


End file.
